Family rejects Israeli decision to close case of elderly Palestinian-American’s torture death

Palestinian relatives mourn during the funeral of Omar Assad, 78, who died in January 2022 after Israeli soldiers bound, temporarily gagged, blindfolded and left him on the cold ground. (AFP)
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Updated 14 June 2023
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Family rejects Israeli decision to close case of elderly Palestinian-American’s torture death

  • Israeli soldiers dragged Asaad — handcuffed and blindfolded— a long distance, and he was left in the yard of a house under construction for hours in the extreme cold
  • Hassan Al-Khatib, the lawyer for the Asaad family, said that if the Israeli prosecution refused to accept the appeal, a petition would be submitted to the Israeli Supreme Court

RAMALLAH: The lawyer for the family of an elderly Palestinian-American who died after being subjected to the Israeli army’s violence in January 2022 has announced that he will appeal against the Israeli decision to close the investigation into the “murder” of the elderly man.
Omar Asaad, 80, died at dawn on Jan. 12, 2022. According to witnesses, the Israeli soldiers dragged Asaad — handcuffed and blindfolded— a long distance, and he was left in the yard of a house under construction for several hours in the extreme cold, where he died.
Hassan Al-Khatib, the lawyer for the Asaad family, from the village of Jilyjlia, north of Ramallah, said that if the Israeli prosecution refused to accept the appeal, a petition would be submitted to the Israeli Supreme Court.
Al-Khatib said the Israeli public prosecution had announced in January this year that it would file an indictment against the soldiers who committed the crime. After the arrival of the new far-right government, however, the decision was aborted by political orders.
Al-Khatib stressed that legal procedures would continue until justice was delivered for the man who was killed.
According to Israeli sources, the force responsible for Asaad’s death was the Nitzah Yehuda battalion, which includes extremist settlers, some of whom live in outposts in the West Bank and whose soldiers carry out attacks against Palestinians.
The sources say that members of this army division regularly stop Palestinian vehicles, remove their passengers and abuse them.
Shawan Jabarin, director of the Ramallah-based human rights group Al-Haq, told Arab News that the Israeli army’s admission that the soldiers’ conduct was inappropriate and subsequent disciplinary measures against them indicate that they were indeed responsible for causing Asaad’s death. Closing the investigation, however, meant that the Israeli authorities were absolved of responsibility, he said.
While the army officers’ abuse of the elderly man led to punitive measures as well as financial compensation to Asaad’s family, “Israel always follows a policy of impunity.”
The military unit’s commander escaped with a reprimand and demotion, two officers were dismissed.
The Israeli public prosecution office justified the closure of the case by saying that the Palestinian Authority did not provide Israel with Asaad’s autopsy report and that his family did not supply his medical file.
“The victim is not required to prove that he is a victim; the investigation system has to prove that. The Israeli authorities did not investigate Asaad’s death seriously. They just conducted a formal investigation based on the American request in this regard,” Jabarin said.
An Israeli institution close to the Israeli army reported that Asaad deserved to die because he “shouted loudly” against the soldiers.
The Palestinian Ministry of Foreign Affairs condemned the Israeli decision to close the investigation.
It said that the closure of the file intends to mislead “global public opinion” and “give the impression that there are Israeli investigations into the ongoing crimes committed by the Israeli army,” which often end “with the acquittal of the perpetrators, the concealment of evidence, and the provision of escape doors for political and military officials as well, who give instructions to facilitate the killing of Palestinians.”
Jabarin said this case proved once again that the judicial system in Israel formed an integral part of the occupation system itself, as most crimes are ignored and no investigations are conducted that are appropriate to the circumstances.
The Palestinian Foreign Ministry called on the US administration to investigate this crime, as Asaad was an American citizen, stressing that the Palestinian Authority was fully prepared to cooperate to uncover the killers.
It also called on the International Criminal Court to quickly complete its investigations into Israeli crimes and hold Israeli war criminals accountable for their actions.


Wildfires kill two in western Turkiye, little-known group claims arson attacks

Updated 2 sec ago
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Wildfires kill two in western Turkiye, little-known group claims arson attacks

The latest casualty was a backhoe operator, Ibrahim Demir, who died while battling the flames in the Odemis district
A group calling itself “Children of Fire” claimed responsibility

ISTANBUL: A wildfire killed a second person in Türkiye’s western Izmir province on Tuesday as blazes raged for a seventh day across several regions, while a little-known group claiming ties to Kurdish militants said it was behind dozens of arson attacks.
The latest casualty was a backhoe operator, Ibrahim Demir, who died while battling the flames in the Odemis district, the state-run Anadolu news agency said.
Earlier, an 81-year-old bedridden man who was home alone in the same area died when fire reached his house, marking the first death since the fires began.
A group calling itself “Children of Fire” claimed responsibility for “tens of fires across six Turkish cities”, according to a statement shared online.
The group, which is little known, says it is affiliated with the outlawed Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK), designated a terrorist group by Türkiye, the United States and European Union. The PKK, which said in May that it was ending a 40-year insurgency and disbanding, has not commented on the claim.
Firefighters continued to battle flames with helicopters and planes dropping water over mountainous terrain in Izmir, while authorities closed some roads to the Aegean resort town of Cesme, Anadolu said.
Broadcasters showed footage of flames lining the main highway as water tankers arrived.
Türkiye, Greece and other countries in the Mediterranean are in an area scientists dub “a wildfire hotspot” — with blazes common during hot and dry summers. These have become more destructive in recent years due to a fast-changing climate.
Wildfires across Türkiye’s west have damaged around 200 homes and victims have been provided alternative accommodation, Interior Minister Ali Yerlikaya said. Some 50,000 people were temporarily evacuated earlier this week from areas of fires fueled by high temperatures, low humidity and strong winds.
New fires also broke out on Thursday in the southern resort province of Antalya and in forested areas near Istanbul, Türkiye’s largest city, Anadolu said. Authorities have managed to contain several of the blazes.

US imposes fresh sanctions targeting Iran oil trade, Hezbollah

Updated 6 min 10 sec ago
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US imposes fresh sanctions targeting Iran oil trade, Hezbollah

WASHINGTON: The US imposed sanctions on Thursday against a network that smuggles Iranian oil disguised as Iraqi oil, and on a Hezbollah-controlled financial institution, the Treasury Department said. A network of companies run by Iraqi-British national Salim Ahmed Said has been buying and shipping billions of dollars worth of Iranian oil disguised as, or blended with, Iraqi oil since at least 2020, the department said.
“Treasury will continue to target Tehran’s revenue sources and intensify economic pressure to disrupt the regime’s access to the financial resources that fuel its destabilizing activities,” Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent said.
The US has imposed waves of sanctions on Iran’s oil exports over its nuclear program and funding of militant groups across the Middle East.
Reuters reported late last year that a fuel oil smuggling network that generates at least $1 billion a year for Iran and its proxies has
flourished in Iraq since 2022.
Thursday’s sanctions came after the US carried out strikes on June 22 on three Iranian nuclear sites, including its most deeply buried enrichment plant Fordow. The Pentagon said on Wednesday the strikes had degraded Iran’s nuclear program by up to two years, despite a far more cautious initial assessment that had leaked to the public.
The US and Iran are expected to hold talks about its nuclear program next week in Oslo, Axios reported.
The Treasury Department also issued sanctions against several senior officials and one entity associated with the Hezbollah-controlled financial institution Al-Qard Al-Hassan.
The officials, the department said, conducted millions of dollars in transactions that ultimately benefited, but obscured, Hezbollah.

One person killed, 4 injured in Israeli airstrike on car in Beirut

Lebanese soldiers cordon off the site after a reported Israeli strike on a vehicle in Khaldeh, south of the capital Beirut.
Updated 50 min 54 sec ago
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One person killed, 4 injured in Israeli airstrike on car in Beirut

  • Israeli military spokesperson says the army ‘targeted a terrorist in Lebanon who was involved in arms smuggling and advancing terrorist plots against Israeli citizens and army forces’
  • Israeli army forces enter Kfar Kila, the closest Lebanese town to Israel, on Thursday morning and blow up a civilian home

BEIRUT: An Israeli drone attack hit a car on Khaldeh Road in southern Beirut at about 5 p.m. on Thursday. Initial reports suggested one person was killed and at least four injured.

The drone fired two guided missiles at the vehicle, scoring direct hits. The road on which it was traveling was described as a typically busy road.

The Israeli army confirmed the attack. In a message posted on social media platform X, military spokesperson Avichay Adraee said: “The Israeli army targeted a terrorist in Lebanon who was involved in arms smuggling and advancing terrorist plots against Israeli citizens and army forces on behalf of the Iranian Quds Force.”

The attack took place three days before US envoy Thomas Barrack is due visit to Beirut to receive Lebanon’s response to US disarmament proposals designed to restrict control of weapons in the country to the Lebanese state, and a day after Hezbollah reiterated its rejection of the demand.

Hezbollah’s secretary-general, Naim Qassem, said on Wednesday that the group “categorically rejects any efforts to disarm. We do not accept being led into humiliation, nor surrendering our land or weapons to the Israeli enemy.”

The matter of weapons is “an internal Lebanese issue that must be addressed internally, without external supervision or interference,” he added.

“The party will not submit to any external threat or pressure. No one decides for us or imposes choices on us that we do not accept. Our weapons are our legitimate and legal right to confront the Israeli occupation.”

On Thursday morning, Israeli army forces entered the southern town of Kfar Kila and blew up a civilian home. Located across the border from the Israeli settlement of Metula, Kfar Kila is the closest Lebanese town to Israel, separated only by a border fence. The UN Interim Force in Lebanon and the Lebanese army maintain a permanent presence in the area.


Algeria jails historian who questioned Amazigh culture

Updated 03 July 2025
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Algeria jails historian who questioned Amazigh culture

  • He was arrested on May 3 for “the crime of undermining national unity“
  • Belghit’s lawyer Toufik Hichour said on Facebook that a court sentenced him to five years

ALGIERS: An Algerian court on Thursday sentenced historian Mohamed Amine Belghit to five years in prison for offending national symbols, his lawyer said, after remarks questioning the existence of the native Amazigh culture.

Belghit sparked outrage in the North African country when he said in a recent interview that “the Amazigh language is an ideological project of Franco-Zionist origin,” and that “there’s no such thing as Amazigh culture.”

He was arrested on May 3 for “the crime of undermining national unity” by targeting “symbols of the nation and the republic” as well as “disseminating hate speech,” the prosecution said at the time.

On Thursday, Belghit’s lawyer Toufik Hichour said on Facebook that a court outside the capital Algiers sentenced him to five years behind bars.

The prosecutor had requested seven years jailtime and a fine of 700,000 dinars ($5,400).

Algeria in 2016 granted official status to Tamazight, the language of the Amazigh people, who are also known as Berbers.

The Berber new year celebration, Yennayer, was added in 2017 to the list of national holidays.

Belghit, a university professor, is no stranger to controversies.

His remarks often cause uproar, with critics accusing him of historical revisionism and hostility toward the Amazigh people.


Iran committed to Non-Proliferation Treaty, foreign minister says

Updated 03 July 2025
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Iran committed to Non-Proliferation Treaty, foreign minister says

  • Abbas Araqchi made the comment a day after Tehran enacted a law suspending cooperation with the UN nuclear watchdog
  • Iran has accused the IAEA of siding with Western countries and providing a justification for Israel’s airstrikes

Iran remains committed to the nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty and its safeguards agreement, Foreign Minister Abbas Araqchi said on Thursday, a day after Tehran enacted a law suspending cooperation with the UN nuclear watchdog.
“Our cooperation with the IAEA (International Atomic Energy Agency) will be channeled through Iran’s Supreme National Security Council for obvious safety and security reasons,” Araqchi wrote in a post on X.
President Masoud Pezeshkian on Wednesday enacted the legislation passed by parliament last week to suspend cooperation with the IAEA, a move the US called “unacceptable.”
Araqchi’s comment on X was in response to a call from Germany’s Foreign Ministry urging Tehran to reverse its decision to shelve cooperation with the IAEA.
Araqchi accused Germany of “explicit support for Israel’s unlawful attack on Iran, including safeguarded nuclear sites.”
Iran has accused the IAEA of siding with Western countries and providing a justification for Israel’sJune 13-24 airstrikes on Iranian nuclear installations, which began a day after the UN agency’s board of governors voted to declare Tehran in violation of its obligations under the NPT.
Western powers have long suspected that Iran has sought to develop the means to build atomic bombs through its declared civilian atomic energy program. Iran has repeatedly said it is enriching uranium only for peaceful nuclear ends.
IAEA inspectors are mandated to ensure compliance with the NPT by seeking to verify that nuclear programs in treaty countries are not diverted for military purposes.
The law that went into effect on Wednesday mandates that any future inspection of Iranian nuclear sites by the IAEA needs approval by Tehran’s Supreme National Security Council.
“We are aware of these reports. The IAEA is awaiting further official information from Iran,” the Vienna-based global nuclear watchdog said in a statement.
US State Department spokesperson Tammy Bruce told a regular briefing on Wednesday that Iran needed to cooperate fully with the IAEA without further delay.